Dealer business is a different business from project business. We manufacture to a specification and you sell it. The margin comes from the repeat, from how few surprises the customer gets, and from whether your label looks right on the piece when it arrives. If you are still working out where to start, everything we make puts the whole catalogue in one place, and How to Get a Custom Furniture Quotation is the closest read to this one.

This guide covers the three manufacturing models a dealer programme can run, how minimums and reorder tiers work, why knock-down engineering and labelling decide whether a container is worth shipping, and what it takes to keep a product looking the same across restocks. We are a custom furniture manufacturer in Foshan, China, and for the Italian-inspired part of the range our custom Italian furniture service covers how those pieces are specified.

Two Different Businesses: OEM and ODM

There are three ways a dealer programme can run, and picking the wrong one causes most of the trouble. The table sets out who owns the design in each case and what you get.

The distinction matters more than it sounds. Under OEM you own the design and we make it, which means your risk sits with you. Under ODM we develop the design with you and you sell what we developed together. Under a white-label model we own the design outright and you put your name on it - the easiest to start, and the one where you need to be clear about who owns the design rights, because that question comes up later, usually during a reorder.

Minimums, Tiers and the Reorder Problem

Dealer minimums exist because we hold stock, and stock ties up cash in a way a made-to-order project does not. The order has to cover the material we buy, the labour we commit and the space we occupy. Below that, the economics do not work and it is better to say so than to accept an order and disappoint.

Tiers work like this: a small quantity gets a longer lead time and a higher unit price, because the setup cost is spread over fewer pieces. A larger quantity gets a shorter lead time, a better unit price and priority in the production queue. The threshold is not arbitrary - it is where the setup cost stops dominating.

The reorder problem is the one to plan for. If a dealer orders the same product in a different batch six months later, the veneer may not match, the fabric may be from a different dye lot, and the customer will notice. What prevents this is holding the specification - board reference, dye batch, hardware code, finish recipe - and quoting the reorder against it. Our quotation and order process covers how a specification gets fixed and quoted, and the key is fixing it properly the first time.

Knock-Down Engineering, Packaging and Labelling

This is where a dealer container either works or does not. A sofa that ships assembled takes three times the volume of the same sofa shipped flat, and you pay freight on air.

Knock-down design means the piece comes apart for shipping and goes back together on site. It costs engineering effort up front - the joints have to be designed to be assembled twice, sometimes three times, without going loose - and it pays for itself quickly in container volume. We do it whenever the design allows, and we tell you when it does not.

Packaging and labelling are the unglamorous half and they decide whether the customer is happy. Flat-pack panels need corner protection and moisture barrier, because a sofa that arrives with a mould mark is a return. Your label, your SKU, your colour code and your assembly instructions go on every carton, in the right place, so your warehouse can work without opening a phone call to us. And the assembly instructions have to be in the customer's language, written for someone assembling a sofa at home rather than a professional fitter.

Protecting Consistency Across Restocks

The product that loses money is not the one that is slightly different. It is the one that is visibly different, because then you get the phone call.

So there are four records to keep and ask your supplier to hold. The board reference for the veneer, so a wardrobe run matches across doors. The dye batch for the fabric. The hardware code. And the finish recipe with its sheen level, because "same oak" from two different batches can look like two different colours in the same room.

Ask for these in writing and confirm they will make to the original specification for a stated period. Then photograph your own stock when a new batch arrives and put the two side by side under the same light, before it goes out to a customer. Our quality control process covers how we check consistency within a batch, which is the same discipline applied across batches.

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